Electrical structural components of the above type are installed in a plurality of electrical circuits. In most cases, these components comprise an electromagnetic relay equipped with a row of contact pins, and a socket equipped with connector bushings into which contact pins of inlet conductors are insertable. The connector bushings are thereby simultaneously connected to the corresponding electrical conductors forming the switching or energizing and the operating circuit or circuits. In this manner, the socket can serve simultaneously for producing the necessary electrical connections between the relay and the various circuits, and for providing a mounting and support for the relay, whereby the socket is rigidly connected with a respective base, for example, a printed circuit board.
In the utilization of this type of electrical structural component in specialized fields in which a plurality of various electrical connections need to be made in the smallest available space, as is the case in the field of aeronautics and space technology, it has been a problem that for every switching task a relay type with the necessary number of electrical connections and for every relay type a correspondingly constructed and coded mounting socket must be made available and hence held in stock. Furthermore, the known structural components of this type often take up a considerable space.